David Ganly

Film

Theatre

TV

Reviews

ON BLUEBERRY HILL - WEST END
“This two hander which is brilliantly executed by two (Ganly and Buggy) supremely gifted Irish character actors has a fierce beating heart…Barry’s language and these actors beguile… - Jane Edwards and Patricia Nicol (The Sunday Times)

“Buggy and Ganly seem completely at home with the intricacies of Barry’s writing. Both performances are restrained but gently expressive, tender and heart-filling. There’s a dash of the confessional to each of their narratives, but they never overplay this.” - Natasha Tripney (The Stage)

“But it is the sublime gift of the splendid duo of actors David Ganly and Niall Buggy that they draw us in with the compassion and caring that their stories eventually reveal, and the qualities of redemption and ultimate forgiveness that they forge.” - Mark Shenton (Londontheatre.co.uk)

“The burly, open-faced Ganly is ceaselessly riveting as a man plagued with a mind like “a darting bird” that can’t help but replay one particular action over and over.” - Matt Wolf (Artsdesk)

ON BLUEBERRY HILL - NEW YORK TRANSFER
“Ravishing. DAVID GANLY delivers a stunned and eternal woundedness, questions of culpability become moot, and you feel a bottomless pity. Sebastian Barry has an uncommon gift for finding hypnotic music in this perspective. And when his language is delivered by consummate Irish actors like Niall Buggy and David Ganly, it’s hard not to sink into a state of contented sadness that you half wish would go on forever. Steeped in a luminous wonder that makes you want to weep for what you take for granted in your daily existence.” - Ben Brantley (New York Times)

“Sebastian Barry’s U.S. premiere at 59E59 is a tour de force for its players Niall Buggy and DAVID GANLY.” - Simon Saltzman (A CurtainUp)

“Played strongly and sincerely by DAVID GANLY as the young PJ and Niall Buggy as the older Christy, the two fluctuate between pain and happiness, confessing their stories of love, desire, and companionship as poetically eternal. Half the pleasure is their dynamic and engaging delivery, while the other lies strongly in the dense sweet storytelling of paternal love.” -(Times Square Chronicles)

“PJ, played by the magnificent Irish actor DAVID GANLY, is hefty and soft of flesh by his own description—a man of reflection rather than action, which makes the nature of the criminal act he admits to all the more ironic and jarring. […] PJ conveys both a surprisingly earthy erudition and a probing, wracked conscience, both qualities that GANLY relays with piercing force.

I found GANLY even more mesmerizing, in part because I’d never seen him on stage before, but also for the blazing intensity and sheer weight—in the best, most natural sense—he brings to PJ’s lines, which can be equally wry and raw in their lyricism but are clearly more informed by learning, and by tortured contemplation.” - Elysa Gardner (New York Stage Review)

“Buggy and GANLY give what are among the finest demonstrations of restrained, totally believable acting on the current New York stage. Buggy and GANLY—the latter, especially—manage to mask their theatrical devices beneath a natural, even confidential manner that makes us feel they’re talking straight to us, creating an immediacy greatly aided by the intimacy of 59E59’s Theater B.” - (Theater Life)

“Both Ganly and Buggy deliver the kind of moving performances that take a beautifully written, poetic piece of writing and make it something haunting and quite extraordinary.” - Philip Fisher (British Theatre Guide)

ON BLUEBERRY HILL
“The less the audience knows about the details of this in advance, the better. What ought to be shouted from the rooftops, however, is the achievement of the two actors, Niall Buggy and David Ganly, as Christy and PJ. It’s hard to find a word that captures it adequately. “Superb” will have to do. - Arminta Wallace (The Irish Times)

LONESOME WEST
“It is funny and grim and, in Andy Arnold’s production, superbly played. It is funny and grim and, in Andy Arnold’s production, superbly played. Keith Fleming is all snarling malevolence as the murderous Coleman; David Ganly a smug bundle of boyish pettiness as his brother Valene;David Ganly a smug bundle of boyish pettiness as his brother Valene” - Mark Fisher (The Guardian)

“The play culminates in a superb satirical sequence about the idea of apology as a way of putting past disputes behind us, played with shattering, hilarious brilliance by Keith Fleming’s Coleman and David Ganly’s Valene.” - Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman)

THE THREEPENNY OPERA
“The result is ravishment by theatre – a glorious, insane, rambunctious, astonishing and raucous ride. It would be criminal to miss it.” - Una McMahon (Entertainment.ie)

“An unceasingly sassy, spunky production.”- John McKeown (Irish Independent)

“Several actors are outstanding, but there is space here only to mention the everyman charm and steely power of David Ganly as Mack the knife.” - Trevor White (The Irish Sunday Times)

“David Ganly excels as the gangster Mack the Knife, full of volatility and bluster, and he and his mismatched goons dominate the entire auditorium.” - Una McMahon (Entertainment.ie)

“Brilliant too, is the powerful vocal performance from David Ganly as Mack.” - Leslie Ann Horgan (Daily Irish Mail)

OF MICE & MEN
“David Ganly perfectly captures the innocence of Lennie, who suffers from a mental disability. He’s a gentle giant of a man with the strength of three men and this causes problems when he accidently kills a mouse and a puppy he was petting. Tomas Padden gives a riveting performance as George, Lennie’s travelling companion who promised his aunt that he would look after him. They had to escape from the last town when Lennie touched a woman’s dress and wouldn’t let it go.” - Robin Strapp (British Theatre Guide)

“....... Ganly as Lennie both give truly touching performances, and it’s a joy to see them in such an intimate space. Ganly takes on this notoriously difficult part with true sensitivity, and pitches it perfectly.” - Chris Snow (Whatsonstage.com)

“David Ganly perfectly conveys the childlike vulnerability of gentle giant Lennie, with his dreams of a life spent tending rabbits, and his ominous knack of getting into trouble” - Peter Coe (The Good Review)

BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
“David Ganly as her putative rescuer, and Terence Keeley as his restless younger brother, also give pitch-perfect performances in a play that actively engages the audience.” - Michael Billington (The Guardian)

“In a couple of short scenes David Ganly captures our hearts as he establishes the daughter’s rogue wooer as one of nature’s gentleman” - Gerald Berkowitz (The Stage)

“These performances are complemented by a superbly charismatic turn by David Ganly in the role of Pato. Again, the success of the characterisation lies in the actor’s willingness to create contrasts. On the one hand, we understand that Pato has the physical strength of any Irish builder: he moves as if used to carrying heavy weights, as if he’s certain that he’s not going to have his way blocked by anyone. Yet we also constantly sense his fragility: the body language Ganly uses when his character is trying to describe his emotions is always awkward and uncertain, revealing with a simple clarity Pato’s isolation and loneliness.” - Patrick Lonergan (Irish Theatre Magazine)

“Pato Dooley is a big, shy man who has taken twenty years to pluck up enough courage to talk to Maureen, in his eyes the Beauty Queen of Leenane, let alone get any closer. Their night of seduction is a comic masterpiece that leads to a shocking finale but not before David Ganly gets spontaneous applause for his reading of a heartfelt but nevertheless hilarious love letter.” - Philip Fisher (British Theatre Guide)

“And There is outstanding support from David Ganly as the decent, tongue-tied suitor.” - Charles Spencer (The Daily Telegraph)

Excerpt of Review of ‘The Lonesome West’
New York Times, By David Hare
David Ganly as Father Welsh

“It is the ineffectual alcoholic Father Welsh (David Ganly), a nascent independent thinker, who dominates the play. His gradual awakening to the hell he inhabits is the backbone of “THE LONESOME WEST”, providing a subtext for a work that otherwise would be merely the Irish equivalent to the kind of hillbilly cartoons Esquire used to run. Garry Hynes, who staged “THE BEAUTY QUEEN” is also the director of “THE LONESOME WEST”, which is beautifully acted by Stafford, O’Byrne, Ms Bradfield and, particularly Ganly.”

ONCE

“David Ganly as the bank manager in constant battle with the irrepressible music shop owner of Spanish heritage, Billy, played with scene stealing assurance by Phelim Drew, are a joy to watch.” - Chris O’Rourke (The Arts Review)

Stats

Training: The Samuel Beckett Centre

Vocal Range: High Baritone to A

Eyes: Blue
Hair: Light Brown
Height: 5'11"